$7.1M Acquisition Loan on the Volare Hotel in San Clemente

The hotel at 111 Avenida De La Estrella has answered to two names. It operated for years as the Holiday Inn San Clemente Resort, then converted in November 2017 to The Volare, an Ascend Collection property under the Choice Hotels umbrella, keeping its speakeasy style lounge, Through the Looking Glass, off the lobby. In May 2026 it traded: county records show an $11,200,000 sale recorded May 29 from Lees San Clemente Resort LLC to SC Hotel Venture LLC, with Commercial Bank of California recording a $7,086,000 acquisition deed of trust executed May 26.

The property is a three story hotel a few blocks from the San Clemente pier, built in 1989 and renovated at the 2017 rebranding per leasing records, which list 72 rooms, 19 suites and 53 standard; the 2017 conversion press release said 73. Both counts are reported as published. Current travel platforms show the hotel operating and taking reservations.

The debt chain tracks the hotel's ownership eras through a distinctive lending community: a $390,000 private mortgage in 1986, American International Bank in 1996, East West Bank at $2,750,000 in 2003, First General Bank in 2005 and 2006, and Mega International Commercial Bank, a Taiwanese institution, from 2008. The new loan nearly doubles the largest debt previously recorded.

The lender chose its lane deliberately. Commercial Bank of California, an Orange County based bank, names hospitality and hotels as an explicit specialty on its real estate lending page, citing recent hotel deals up to a $31,850,000 Hyatt Place acquisition loan in Los Angeles. That published specialty matters in a market where most banks treat hotels as an exception. This is CBC's first closing tracked on LoanList, ranking 18th of 25 in Orange County; the only other tracked county hospitality closing is a $7,500,000 First Commercial Bank loan in Lake Forest.

For owners of flagged select service and boutique hotels, the deal documents a specific and useful fact: sub $10,000,000 California hotel acquisitions are being financed by regional banks that advertise hotel lending, at meaningful leverage to recorded purchase prices. The lender bench for a 70 room coastal hotel is short, but it exists, and its members put their specialty in writing.